The iOS gaming thread

[LongHairStu]

I was looking for 'proper' games the other week, and I found Platypus, the claymation horizontally scrolling shooter. I played the demo of this on PC a few years back, and felt it could do with an XBLA release. But three quid on the phone seemed good enough, so I made a purchase. It's nice - decent tilt controls combine well with an autofire for simplicity. Touch controls are more precise, but your finger of course gets in the way.

Surprised no-one else has mentioned it actually.

[c-cat114]

NOt that this is a requests thread but I'd LOVE Samorost 1 and 2 on the ipod. Seems a perfect match, bar the lack of flash support, but games that would perfectly suit the platform.

[Mad Gear]

What is the best tower defence game on the iPhone?

There are about 600 of them and I don't know where to start (and you can't really trust the 5 star rating in iTunes)

I'd recommend Besiegement , Elemental Monsters & 7 Cities. Fieldrunners and GeoDefense are must haves.

[Wroth]

NOt that this is a requests thread but I'd LOVE Samorost 1 and 2 on the ipod. Seems a perfect match, bar the lack of flash support, but games that would perfectly suit the platform.

I think the games might be too detailed and precise for the iphone and its fat finger interface system

[ravnaz]

So what games would people like to see?

[Wroth]

some point n click stories, some decent Zel-troid-vanian adventures, some decent push-based multiplayer games (like naked war)

For the latter I hope they implement a decent friend system that can be universally used across all games.

Anyone know if 1112 is any good? It seems quite expensive for an episodic adventure, and the demo for episode 1 is criminally short, but it reminds me of hotel dusk, which is a good thing. Is it worth it?

[shirubagan]

Belowscape is a nice little geometry Wars clone with online scoreboards. Much fun.

[Joyrex-J9]

So what games would people like to see?

Remakes of Dungeon Master & Black Crypt or EOTB would be aces (if done properly) I reckon the iPhone interface is up to the job. Not sure how how you'd do right mouse clicks though.

[Duckula]

I would love to see Snatcher ported, I think Hideo Kojima commented saying it was never going to happen. At least we have a shite MGS game though!

[WizRider]

Remakes of Dungeon Master & Black Crypt or EOTB would be aces (if done properly) I reckon the iPhone interface is up to the job. Not sure how how you'd do right mouse clicks though.

Right clicks are handled really well in the LogMeIn remote desktop iPhone app I've got - simply press two fingers to the screen next to each other rather than one. Works perfectly and would be fine for games too.

Cheers...

[Kramer]

I'm still buying the apps!

Although, just downloaded Zen Jar which is free and similar to that beach app where you send messages in bottles.

Currently sending messages back and forth about Lost with someone. Another person is detailing his roadkill and another tells me I'm going to 'jail for life' because I think Steven Gerrard is a good footballer!

[Joyrex-J9]

Anyone playing Edge?

I've got to level 21 called "Star Castle" and it's impossible - you get to a bit of the level which is a dead end, literally nowhere to go, apart from falling to your death.

[Pistol]

I downloaded iCombat last night, because, well, it's Tanks innit. Bit rough round the edges, but it's Tanks, and it costs less than an mp3 for gawd's sake.

[lankysanchez]

Anyone tried Galaxy On Fire? Looks like an interesting Elite sort of thing. Impressive-looking graphics, but for £3.49 slightly out of my 'impulse-buy' zone... There isn't a demo/lite version that I can see, so any opinions would be useful.

[Andross]

Osu! Although the download tracks are mostly obscure, and obviously the controls are nowhere near as good as the DS.

[The Bag]

Karma Star is good fun, designed by Harvey Smith, it's kind of a card game (UNO meets the Sims is one way I've seen it described) - you have a 5 stats, each turn you get to do one of three random actions, either boosting a stat or attacking another player on that stat, the value of the stat determing the number of 'dice' for 'combat'. You get 1 star for an action, 2 for winning combat and additional stars for other things (maximg a stat, being all opponents in combat, etc), the one with the most stars after 8 turns wins (my highest score is 34). Add wildcards into the mix and it's a fun, quick little game.

[Kramer]

Anyone tried Galaxy On Fire? Looks like an interesting Elite sort of thing. Impressive-looking graphics, but for £3.49 slightly out of my 'impulse-buy' zone... There isn't a demo/lite version that I can see, so any opinions would be useful.

Yep, I've got it. I think it's very good, but quite difficult (which, for me is a bonus in these easy-to-complete-games times).

You have 13 Missions to complete at the beginning and then the game opens up into 'Elite'. Space stations have missions/trading and ship upgrades.

There's an update due, which will include a slider to change the difficulty.

I know £3.49 is 'expensive' for an iPhone game, but you get a lot of game with Galaxy on Fire. You might want to wait for the update to see what they add.

Another game that is superb, although it doesn't have a career mode (yet?!) AND runs with more riders on ipod Touch, than iPhone due to the better procesor is 2XL Supercross. That is a superb racing game, framerate is totally smooth, controls are great and the graphics are probably the best I've seen on iPhone.

I've bought a shedload of good 59p games recently, I might do a round up of the very best, in this thread this week.

[lankysanchez]

Cheers for that kramer, I may well give it a punt. In what way is it quite hard? it looks like the space combat controls might be quite fiddly.

[fatoy.japa]

Cheers for that kramer, I may well give it a punt. In what way is it quite hard? it looks like the space combat controls might be quite fiddly.

The virtual analogue stick isn't implemented particularly well as far as I'm concerned. For some reason developers persist in duplicating an actual stick in the centre of a much larger 'touchable' zone - having it bounce back in between touches - instead of adopting the iDracula 'wheels' system, which is far better at reproducing the feel of a controller stick than the 'proper' recreation method seems to be. It's not a huge deal in Galaxy on Fire as the nature of the dogfighting means that you'll almost always have a second or third chance to loop back and chase an enemy ship when you miss them the first time around, but you will notice it.

I'm also not particularly keen on 2XL Supercross for various reasons, but I don't want to sound as though I'm just picking apart Kramer's recommendations here.

I'm late to the party on a few things, but Flight Control, Bookworm and Belowscape are all great fun. I'd skip Abigale, though.

[ASM]

My record is 119. By this point, I was in a zen like state and had become one with my iphone.

Flight control is awesome, my favourite iPhone game by a mile. Just managed to get a 72.

[superpretend]

Bookworm is easily the best word game I've played. It's got that I-CAN'T-STOP-PLAYING feel to it that PopCap do so well. I like the fact that a game can span days thanks to the resume feature. And it has a nice achievement-kind of thing with certain words opening 'book collections', word families for you to collect.

I'm sure it's identical to the PC version, but to be honest, it's not the kind of game I'd play on the PC. On the iPhone however, it's perfect.

[fatoy.japa]

I'm sure it's identical to the PC version, but to be honest, it's not the kind of game I'd play on the PC. On the iPhone however, it's perfect.

They're actually reasonably different in some respects. Even though they're both based on the same word creation concept from tiles, the PC version is a side-scrolling word-'em-up with RPG elements (seriously).

[Kramer]

I'm also not particularly keen on 2XL Supercross for various reasons, but I don't want to sound as though I'm just picking apart Kramer's recommendations here.

Yeah, Supercross I like - but it's not a recommendation in the sense Flight Control etc were in my first post in this thread. It's expensive and there's no career mode. However, I can't imagine you don't like about the controls for the simple reason there's a such a variety to choose from. 3 of them work perfectly. (i haven't tried left hand variations!) It's the racer that gets the controls right, because there's such a variety and also different sensitivities to rider tilt and control tilt.

Galaxy of Fire has to be played with the accelerometer - I'm surprised you've even bothered with the joystick.

I am loathe to recommend anything other than 59p games (and generally wouldn't but nemo did specifically ask about GoF) because I'm a lot more lenient on what I expect from something that costs me £3.50. I enjoy GoF more than I did Colony Wars, for example, and that cost me £30 at the time.

[Kramer]

Galaxy of Fire update is out.

Controls are improved.

Difficulty slider.

Now has a lead target, so you know where to shoot in front of the enemy ship.

Going between hanger/shop is instantaneous.

Other minor improvements.

Without changing the difficulty slider, I've found Missions that were too hard to complete previously, fine now with the the update.

[lankysanchez]

Cheers for that, may well give it a go.

[Looper]

Supreme Air Combat (slightly overblown title...) is worth a free download. It's a strategy game where you have four planes and have to out-manoeuvre and destroy your enemies four. Not really a long-term keeper but worth playing.

[T Pot]

Just tried that. Crashes my iPhone every time i use it.

[Looper]

Weird, works fine on mine. Try turning it off and on [/iT Dept]?

[T Pot]

Yup.

The iPhone is even plugged in!!

[WesT]

Ok, bejewled 2, action mode, my best score is 700k level 7 but one things always bugged me.

If just purposely stay at lower levels surely I'd be able to build up an unlimited score?

Would that be right? I haven got the patience to test the theory